By Jon King
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A ruling by the Michigan Supreme Court will prevent a petition effort to raise Michigan’s minimum wage to $15 an hour from appearing on the 2024 ballot.
In an order released Friday, the court said it was “not persuaded that it should grant the requested relief” to set aside a deadlocked decision by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, which is made up of two Democrats and two Republicans and requires a majority vote for passage.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Brian Zahra said the court would not “second guess” the state canvassing process.
“I take no position on whether the Board’s decision was advisable or superior to potential alternatives. Nor do I comment on whether the Board ultimately came to a ‘correct’ conclusion, as if this Court possessed the administrative authority over elections or the authority to weigh policy merits,” write Zahra.
At a meeting in October, board members disagreed along party lines over a language change to the petition during the 2022 election cycle which altered the requirements for employers imposed by the proposed law which would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2027. Currently, state law requires the rate increase to $12 an hour by 2030.
The initial draft of the petition applied to any employer with at least two employees. While that was later changed to include employers with at least one employee, and the two crossed out of the official text, at some point in the process of circulating the petition for approval in 2022, the text was altered to appear as though the petition would only require employers with at least 21 employees to raise wages, exempting approximately 90% of Michigan employers from the law.
Mark Brewer, an attorney representing Raise the Wage who’s also a former Michigan Democratic Party chair, has said that the change was intentional, but didn’t explain why the petition had been changed to only subject a small minority of businesses to the law.
Jayaraman told The Detroit News in October that with Democrats now in control in Lansing, she hoped the Legislature would adopt the measure and amend it so as to address businesses with fewer than 20 employees.
Despite the change, the Bureau of Elections staff recommended certification. Republican Member Tony Daunt, however, argued the language change was misleading to the voters who signed in support. His GOP colleague, Richard Housekamp, agreed, and both voted against certification.
The court’s decision not to overrule the deadlock was welcomed by the group Michigan Opportunity, a coalition of business owners and organizations that was opposed to the initiative.
“Michigan Opportunity applauds the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling because it correctly said that the Board of Canvassers holds the power to decide if One Fair Wage’s fatally flawed ballot initiative would be placed before voters this fall,” said spokesman John Sellek.
Sellek also thanked the court, saying the ruling and written order included data which he said indicated the “significant negative impacts” the proposal would have on the economy.
Zahra’s opinion noted that the petition would have eliminated “any recognized difference” between tipped workers and those who did not receive tips and that over the course of time, tipping as a primary source of income would be eliminated for many workers. Zahra also referenced polling by the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association in September of 2022 in which 61% of restaurant operators in Michigan “estimated that they would lay off more than 25% of their tipped employees if the minimum-wage offset is substantially reduced or eliminated.”
The offset Sellek referred to is the lower rate that tipped employees can receive in Michigan, which is currently $3.93 per hour.
The group that sponsored the initiative, One Fair Wage, expressed “deep disappointment in the ongoing influence by Republicans and the National Restaurant Association on the Board of Canvassers,” which the group says has repeatedly thwarted the will of Michigan voters.
“We continue to call on the MI Legislature to listen to 610,000 Michigan voters who signed petitions for a $15 minimum wage, and raise the wage to $15 an hour through legislation following the MI Supreme Court’s decision on the ‘Adopt and Amend’ case,” said Saru Jayaraman, President of One Fair Wage.
A lawsuit filed by the group is currently pending before the state’s highest court following oral arguments in December, during which its attorneys argued that the legislative tactic known as “adopt and amend” was unconstitutional.
Under that measure, the Legislature can adopt a ballot measure into law before it goes to the voters and then amend the proposal’s language later that same legislative session.
In the case of One Fair Wage, the Republican-led Michigan Legislature adopted it in 2018, along with another proposal to set rates for sick leave, and then passed new laws that watered down the intent of both measures. Those changes were later rejected by a Michigan Court of Claims ruling in 2022, which was then appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.
“[We] remain optimistic that the State Supreme Court will overrule the unconstitutional Adopt and Amend Tactics of the 2018 Republican legislature, raising wages for nearly a million Michiganders and protecting the sacred right of citizen referendums,” said Jayaraman.
“Michigan workers deserve a raise, and hundreds of thousands of Raise the Wage petition signers agree: Michigan voters and Michigan workers deserve to have their voices heard, and we will continue pursuing all avenues to deliver the raise they’ve been asking for year after year,” added Jayaraman.
Michigan Opportunity, however, said it was hypocritical for One Fair Wage to both argue against “adopt and amend” and hope the legislature would use that tactic to fix their petition language.
“Based on One Fair Wage’s requests for the current legislature to adopt and amend the now-failed 2024 ballot initiative, One Fair Wage should withdraw its 2018 lawsuit attempting to kill the legislature’s 2018 adopt and amend procedure,” said Sellek.
This article originally appeared in Michigan Advance on June 3rd, 2024
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